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Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company (most commonly known as Disney) is the largest media and entertainment corporation in the world. Founded on October 16, 1923 by Walt Disney and his brother Roy O. Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, it is today the number two media company in the United States. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Burbank, California. Disney had revenues of $34.3 billion in 2006, and it is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. For much of its history, the company was known as Walt Disney Productions, Ltd., until February 6, 1986, when it was rechristened with its current name. Disney Enterprises, Inc., commonly seen in company legal notices, is a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. Divisions Disney's main operating units are Studio Entertainment, Parks and Resorts, Media Networks, and Consumer Products. Studio Entertainment Its Studio Entertainment unit, also known as Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, is headed by company president. A collection of movie studios including Walt Disney Pictures (later owned by NBC Universal), Touchstone Pictures, Dreamworks Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Miramax Films and Dimension Films (both owned by The Weinstein Company). One of the company's most successful and historically signifigant subsidiaries is its animation studio, Walt Disney Feature Animation, responsible for producing a number of successful and influential hand-drawn films. In the aftermath of the box office failures of some of its most recent animated films and the stellar successes of CGI films from Pixar Animation Studios, Disney has shifted its production from hand-drawn films (which in recent years have incorporated much work done on computer) to entirely CGI films, however, Walt Disney Feature Animation would not be working on Anastasia and Titan A.E. (both directed by Don Bluth & Gary Goldman and produced by 20th Century Fox). The last traditionally-animated film was 2004's Home on the Range and the first three computer-animated films were 2005's Chicken Little, 2007's Meet the Robinsons and 2008's Bolt. Disney had fallen under much criticism for this change in direction, especially from fans who see the strength of a movie as its plot and its characters and not as the technology used to make it. However, 2009's Walt Disney Pictures' The Princess and the Frog, the first 2D-animated film for five years produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and DisneyToon Studios, the second and final being the most recent 2011's Winnie the Pooh and it was announced on April 30, 2012 that Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures will no longer distributed the animated motion pictures under the Walt Disney Pictures banner, due to 20th Century Fox and Amblin taking over the franchise in 2014, when made King of the Elves (produced by Aardman Feature Animation). Since late 2009, DisneyToon Studios, the former television animation satellite production company with previous operations in Australia, Paris and Burbank was rolled into Walt Disney Animation Studios as a division focussed on direct-to-video animated masterpieces based upon Disney Consumer Products franchises, television cartoon shows, and original properties and DisneyToon Studios' first live-action & computer generated imagery (CGI) film would be Disney's The Chipettes released in the spring 2015. On November 24, 2010, Walt Disney Animation Studios' 50th animated motion picture, Tangled, Disney's first 3D-animated fairy-tale, was released in late 2010. Shortly after the film's release, the Los Angeles Times reported that Ed Catmull said the "princess" genre of films was taking a hiatus until, "someone has a fresh take on it … but we don't have any other musicals or fairytales lined up." He explained that they were looking to get away from the princess era due to the changes in audience composition and preference. However in the Facebook page, Ed Catmull stated that this was just a rumor. Walt Disney Animation Studios will be currently distributed worldwide by Paramount Pictures (owned by Viacom International), starting in late 2012 with Wreck-it-Ralph, the second 3D-animated film created in widescreen cinemascope for over five decades, the first being 2010's Tangled (later re-released as a special edition in late 2014 to be G-rated by the MPAA). Media Networks The Media Networks unit is centered around the American Broadcasting Company (later owned by NBC Universal), which it acquired through a merger with Capital Cities/ABC in 1996. Ironicly enough, it was ABC that helped Disney open the Disneyland theme park in 1955 with financing. Disney also owns a group of cable networks including the Disney Channel, ABC Family, Disney XD (formerly Toon Disney), the ESPN group and SOAPnet through Disney-ABC Cable Networks. Disney also holds substantial interest in Inside Edition (aired on CBS). It also owns ABC Studios, which produces and distributes television programs not only for ABC, but other television networks. Through ABC, Disney also owns local 10 television stations, ESPN Radio and Radio Disney, the latter two of which are considered part of the Disney-ABC Cable Group. Disney-ABC Domestic Television, formerly known as Buena Vista Television, which also is a part of the Media Networks unit, produces such syndicated television programs as the American version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and Live with Regis and Kelly, It sold a majority intrest of their 22 radio stations not affiliated (or owned) with either Radio Disney or ESPN and the ABC Radio Network, which includes media personalities such as Sean Hannity to Citadel Broadcasting in 2007. Disney also operates its Hyperion publishing company and Walt Disney Internet Group (WDIC) through Media Networks. Hyperion has recently published books by comedian-author Steve Martin and bestselling author Mitch Albom. WDIC includes the Go.com web portal, based on the old Infoseek search engine which it purchased in 1998, and leading websites such as Disney.com, ESPN.com, and ABCNews.com. Consumer Products Its Consumer Products unit includes Disney's merchandising and licensing business and its Disney Publishing Worldwide group, whose imprints include Disney Editions, Hyperion Books for Children and Disney Press. It also published the Disney Adventures children's magazine. The unit includes TheDisney Store chain of shopping mall locations, which it sold in 2004 to The Children's Place, but were repurchased in May of 2008, and also includes Jim Henson's Muppets characters, which it purchased via the merger with The Jim Henson Company in 2004. References Category:Media